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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (10901)	11/22/2001 12:47:40 PM
From: John Hunt	Respond to of 27666

Harvard professor missing Hmmm ... Interesting timing! [ A world-renowned Harvard scientist and expert in highly contagious and deadly viruses mysteriously disappeared in Tennessee early last Friday, leaving a rental car on a Memphis bridge. Don C. Wiley was in town to visit relatives and attend the annual meeting of the scientific advisory board of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Police said there were no signs of foul play, just the car with the keys in the ignition on a bridge that spans the Mississippi River. Police found the car five hours after Wiley left a dinner at a posh hotel several blocks from the bridge. ''This is totally unexpected. He was fine on Thursday night,'' said Dr. Joseph Mirro, executive vice president at St. Jude's Hospital. The disappearance of the popular, gregarious scientist has shaken the scientific board and the staff and directors of the hospital, Mirro said. ''This is a terrible event and a great loss to the scientific community,'' he added, assuming the worst. ''He is an extremely brilliant scientist in medicine and understanding biology.'' In Cambridge, Wiley's wife, Katrin Valgeirsdottir, said she was planning to fly down on Friday to meet her 57-year-old husband with their children, ages 7 and 10. He also has two other children, ages 26 and 34, she said. ''He would never vanish. He wouldn't commit suicide,'' she said. ''I have no idea what has happened.'' An award-winning professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Harvard, Wiley built the first model of the structures of influenza viruses and human cells that allow the disease organism to infect humans. In 1985, Wiley began researching how drugs might block the process, using a method called X-ray crystallography, in hopes of conquering maladies ranging from the common cold to HIV. The researcher for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard had flown to Memphis Wednesday evening, police said, and stayed with his father in Germantown, a suburb. Wiley's brother and sister-in-law also live in the area. On Thursday, Wiley met with the other 14 members of the board, and was one of 150 people attending a dinner that evening. Memphis police Lieutenant Joe Scott said that witnesses described him as being in a good mood when he left the dinner. ''No one detected that he was despondent or was having any difficulties in any way,'' Scott said. At 4 a.m. Friday, police found Wiley's rented Mitsubishi Galant on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, which links Tennessee to Arkansas. Memphis police said the doors were unlocked, the key was in the ignition, and the hazard lights had not been turned on. The car had a full tank of gas. Scott said the bridge is about 100 feet high, and has been the scene of a handful of suicides each year. Sometimes the bodies aren't found for weeks, he said. ''We are investigating every angle we can think of,'' Scott said. Wiley's research focuses on the structure of viruses and proteins in the human immune system. Herman Eisen, an MIT professor emeritus and friend of Wiley's, said suicide ''just doesn't fit.'' Wiley ''was extremely successful at what he did. He seemed stable and outgoing, he ran a large research group very effectively. People held him in very high regard.'' ] boston.com

To: lorne who wrote (10901)	11/22/2001 1:46:43 PM
From: John Hunt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 27666

Pope is Bin Laden's Christmas target - ex-CIA chief [ The Vatican's security advisor believes the Pope is the prime target of Osama bin Laden. Vince Cannistraro says bin Laden sees His Holiness as a symbolic head of the crusaders. The former CIA anti-terrorism chief says he fears a Christmas assassination attempt. Mr Cannistraro says the al-Qaida terror network will attempt an attack during the festive season in revenge for the West's bombing of Afghanistan during the muslim holy month of Ramadan. "The Pope is the prime target because the US continued to bomb during Ramadan," Mr Cannistraro warns. "He looks at the Pope as the symbolic head of the crusaders and a natural target." Terrorist experts believe an earlier plot on the Pope's life by Islamic extremists was foiled in 1995 when he visited the Philippines. A spokesman for the Vatican told Ananova: "We never comment on the security arrangements of the Pope." Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper says US Intelligence have uncovered plans to assassinate John Paul II at least 3 times in the last five years. Former US President Bill Clinton confirmed the failed plot in the Philippines to kill the Pontiff by a kamikaze pilot crashing a small plane onto the Pope's car. The pilot had been trained in a flight school in the US. ] ananova.com